


I Always Find You

by Terr



Series: Prompt Requests [1]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Death, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terr/pseuds/Terr
Summary: When nightmares won't allow Chiara to sleep, Ethan is awake too.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Series: Prompt Requests [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032390
Kudos: 12





	I Always Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: mentions of death, trauma, hurt/comfort  
> Prompts: “I think in every reality, I still find you” & “Thankgodyou’reokay-“

The room was completely dark when Ethan opened his eyes slowly, his mind not quite capturing what was happening in its half-asleep state.

Throwing a quick glance at the alarm clock on his bedtime table he sighed, knowing too well what was about to happen.

It was 2:48 AM.

His internal clock didn’t wake him up because the sun was rising, like it usually would.

Ever since his nights with Chiara became a regular habit, everything he knew about his sleeping routine has been demolished and rebuilt.

Hadn’t he experienced Chiara’s nightmares he wouldn’t believe that one person could suffer from those every single night. But sleeping next to Chiara proved him otherwise and he couldn’t remember a night where she wouldn’t scream from her sleep.

The more nights they’ve spent together, the more it affected him too.

Ethan Ramsey has always been a deep-sleeper. The first time he woke up in the middle of the night without any obvious reason, he believed it to be a strange coincidence. It took him weeks to realize that his phases of sleep has been irreversibly connected to Chiara’s.

No matter how deep in his slow wave sleep he was, the moment Chiara’s deep sleep was broken by a nightmare, his own phase passed to REM phase and regularly, he woke up mere seconds before Chiara woke up with a bloodcurdling scream on her lips.

It was a matter of seconds now.

And so, to be ready, Ethan sat up slowly, shiver running up his spine as his naked torso lost its contact with warming sheets.

He glanced down at the woman sleeping next to him and really – the fingers of her right hand curled around the air, as if trying to hold onto something.

_3…_

Her breaths were ragged.

_2…_

Tiny child-like squeal left her mouth.

_1…_

Chiara sat up abruptly without even opening her eyes and - still asleep - screamed.

_“Stop!”_

Not hesitating, Ethan wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into his chest, whispering “It’s okay” and “I am here” gently into her hair until she woke up.

With a cold sweat on her forehead and wide eyes, like a deer standing in a spotlight, Chiara turned to him and throwing her head into his chest, she mumbled **: “Thankgodyour’reokay-“**

Ethan didn’t ask her what the dream was about. Chiara’s nightmares have always been about losing her loved ones and her reaction today made it clear that this one was about losing him.

Chiara hated her nightmares.

After everything she has been through, she managed to live her normal life. She managed to be okay. To be happy. All of that until she fell asleep.

Every night, her whole world would shrink back to the pain and pain only.

There were nights where she would dream about her father’s and brother’s funeral. There were nights where her worst memory replayed in her head over and over – the memory of clutching her mother’s hand while walking into the morgue to identify the two men they loved most in the world. She was twenty when she had to do that and her mother never really forgave herself for letting her girl experience such thing. But Chiara insisted. She knew her mom wouldn’t endure doing it alone.

Everything has gotten worse since the accident – Danny and Bobby found their way into her nightmares too now and sometimes, her mind played those twisted tricks where she had to identify Danny and Bobby after the car crash and her dad and Liam were with her in the hospital room during the leakage.

Those nightmares that were no longer memories, rather scenarios of what could be were the worst. Because sometimes, it was not Liam’s casket she has stood over, it was Sienna’s. Or Aurora’s. Or Bryce’s.

And the worst of them all, the nightmares that felt like they were created purely to punish her for sins she hadn’t known she committed, were about Ethan.

Ethan being dead. Ethan not being in her world anymore. The reality where her Ethan never existed.

“Tea?” Ethan asked softly and she couldn’t be more grateful for his voice that tore her away from her thoughts.

Chiara nodded and accepted the hand he was offering, letting Ethan lead her into his living room.

It became their habit. After particularly bad dreams, Chiara wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep for at least an hour. She would usually wait for Ethan to sleep again and then she would sneak out of the bedroom to make a green tea and wrap herself in a blanket. The process of drinking almost scalding hot tea while sitting in a dark room always eased her anxiety. One night, Ethan found her on his couch and ever since then, they’ve drunk the tea together.

She stopped in the middle of the room while Ethan wrapped the fluffy blanket around her petite form and gently pushed her down to the couch. With a promise to be right back, he left to the kitchen and knowing that he will truly be right back, Chiara managed to breathe more evenly.

With two mugs of tea in his hands, Ethan sat down next to Chiara and kissed her temple gently, making sure that she knew he was there with her.

“What if we weren’t together?” she whispered into the darkness, her voice trembling. “What if you weren’t part of my world and I wasn’t part of yours?”

Ethan sipped his tea slowly and with his free hand tracked soothing patterns on her blanket-covered tight. He didn’t respond. He knew Chiara – she was _his Chiara_ after all – and he knew that she would continue when she would feel like continuing.

“What if you never wrote the book and I wouldn’t be inspired to study medicine at all? What if I quit med school after they died and I would never make it to Edenbrook? What if you didn’t pick me up? What if we never met?”

She didn’t know what kind of answer she wanted to hear. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to hear an answer at all.

“I can’t imagine wading through this life without your presence in it, Ethan.”

It was a defeat. She admitted her biggest fear to him and she felt defeated.

“I don’t know what would happen in those scenarios, Chiara,” Ethan replied at last, his voice unusually quiet.

He knew what kind of answer she expected. He knew what kind of answer he would usually give to such hypotheses. That there is no point in thinking about those things, because they are not real. That reality is what matters.

But Chiara was terrified of her alternative universe and who was he to belittle her fear?

“Things would have been different. But **I think in every reality, I still find you.”**

She finally looked at him and even in the middle of the night, he could see her surprised expression.

As she put those questions between them, she didn’t know what she expected him to say. If anything at all.

Hearing his answer, she knew that he gave her more than she would ever expect. More than he intended.

With those words, Ethan gave Chiara’s mind _a peace._

Peace she so desperately needed.

She wanted to kiss him, to hold him and just kiss him until they'd both forgot what the world around them looked like.

Before she could as much as move, Ethan spoke again.

“I always find you and I always choose you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Little note: the connection of sleep phases between people who sleep next to each other regularly is not something I made up, I have read very interesting study about this and I can actually say that my personal experience says the same! I just think it's so cool


End file.
